Of all automakers, the last one we'd expect to defend the driver's seat from computers just might be Toyota. And as much as we criticize the Japanese brand for lack of imagination, we're floored at what Toyota executives said last week at their technical center in Saline, Michigan: Toyota won't build a fully automated car because human beings, it has discovered, are actually smart.

"Toyota's main objective is safety, so it will not be developing a driverless car," Seigo Kuzumaki, Toyota's deputy chief safety technology officer, said during a conference.

Here's another gem, this one from Kristen Tabar, a vice president at the center: "The human being is the ultimate in sensor fusion. We have the visual, audible advantage, all the different inputs to make the best judgments moving forward."

Compared to gung-ho efforts by Nissan, Audi, Google, and others to rush autonomous cars to market, Toyota wants to introduce more semi-autonomous assists but keep the driver in ultimate control. One of the systems it first debuted in Japan last year, Automated Highway Driving Assist, will trickle into production models starting in 2015. Similar to Mercedes Intelligent Drive (first seen on the 2014 S-class) and Cadillac Super Cruise (set for the 2017 CTS), the Toyota system will take control of braking, throttle, and steering inputs so long as the driver proves, through infrared eye detection, that he or she is alert and paying attention.

When the system can't operate at full capacity, Toyota said it can leverage the car's GPS and historical data from on-board radar and lidar sensors to predict traffic flows in specific lanes. Other accident-avoidance tech adopted from today's Lexus models should be available across its U.S. lineup in 2017, Toyota said.

Toyota's other automated efforts, such as the fully autonomous Lexus LS it debuted at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show or the next-gen Prius plug-in that will self-align over charging mats, will continue as R&D projects. But instead of instilling total confidence in augmenting driver control, Toyota, ever the sensible brand, said "it is important to always engage the most important component of the driving system, which is the 'driver.' " High five, Toyota. High five.

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